Waking
by Child-of-the-Dawn
Summary: Tied to my fic MULTIPLICITY, but can be read as is. Daniel works through the deaths of his family on Rhea just after the attack on Cheyenne Mtn.


**Title: Waking**

**Genre: Angst/drama/family/hurt/comfort aka not a happy fic. At all.**

**Rating: K + for talk of sad stuff. No graphic details, however.**

**Summary: MULTIPLICITY VERSE, but can be read as is. Daniel works through the deaths of his family on Rhea just after the attack on Cheyenne Mtn.**

**NOTE: . is my source for the episode ''The Gamekeeper".**

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_Daniel wandered the halls of the New York History Museum, little hands linked behind his back in an effort to keep himself from touching the displays. His Mom was always telling him not to touch the artifacts, but it was hard. Daniel didn't understand why you couldn't. How could he learn anything if he couldn't touch the papyrus and the ancient coins as their original owners had?_

_He rounded the corner into the ancient Egypt exhibit, where his parents were putting together the newest addition to the museum: A life size replica of a typical tomb from the Middle Kingdom. He grinned. _

_"Move it towards the back. Careful!" his dad called from the other side of the room, where the massive stones were being raised for the ceiling of their artificial tomb._

_They were both totally focused on the stones, so Daniel took a seat atop a replica of a sarcophagus—it wasn't the real thing, so Mom couldn't get mad._

_"Okay, Jake, bring it dow.,Ah!"_

_Daniel's head shot up just as the sound of his Dad's voice turned horrified. The chain holding the ceiling stone was wobbling despite Jake's attempt to steady it. The weight was too much. It swung and swung until the weak metal snapped._

_"NO!!!!!"_

_They screamed over the sound of Daniel's own fear as the stone came crashing down on them. People began yelling "Doctor Jackson!!!" and "Claire!" but Daniel didn't pay them any attention as he scrambled towards where he'd last seen his parents. Someone tried to pull him away—the museum __director he thought—but he broke free and ran to where his mother's head and shoulders were still visible._

_"Mom! Mom!" He cried, taking her hat off so he could better see her face. But it wasn't Claire Jackson lying under the ceiling stone._

_It was Sam._

_Daniel looked to where his father lay. Jack stared back at him, sightless and bloodied._

"NO!!!"

"Daniel! Wake up, Daniel, it was just a dream!"

Daniel Jackson, the grown up version, shot up in bed, grasping blindly for the only source of warmth in the tent, which he realized after a moment would be Vala.

"Daniel..shh...you were dreaming."

"I..I know.....," he said after a moment's pause. The haze between sleep and reality was rapidly fading into the strange fall heat on their new planet, making it easier to slow his breathing and collect his frantic thoughts.

"It was the same nightmare again, wasn't it?" Vala asked softly. He felt his cheeks burn with shame as he nodded in reply.

"Oh, Daniel...," she said, wrapping him in her arms as she laid back down, pulling him with her.

"I'm fine."

"You're also a bad liar, love."

He didn't reply. Sam and Jack's faces, replaced intermittently with those of his parents, were still floating in the darkness of their tent. For a moment he chided himself on letting his dreams scare him, but then the last tendrils of dreamland slid out of his mind reminded him why being scared was useless. His worst nightmare had repeated itself.

Sam and Jack were dead.

He swallowed down the lump in his throat. Sam and Jack were dead, they were exiled on a planet millions of lightyears from Earth, his little nice was almost catatonic with fear, and Ba'al was master of their home planet.

"Daniel...it's ok to cry for them."

He knew that. He didn't need anyone else to tell him that his friends—his _family—_deserved to be mourned. But he couldn't do it. Not when he expected to see them walking out of the woods surrounding their clearing at any time. Just like with his parents...he expected that the unthinkable hadn't happened. Maybe that was why his nightmares insisted on Jack and Sam playing the parts of his parents.

When he'd been little, just after the tragedy at the museum, he hadn't cried for a long time. His parents loved him, so they couldn't have left him. He'd refused to mourn on those grounds, until one day he'd woken up in Mrs. James' house, her son snoring softly to his left, and begun sobbing uncontrollably when he realized he wasn't home. His parents had never left him for so long, and that morning had marked the second month of his life as an orphan.

The same deep, heavy feeling laid itself down on his throat, just as it had in the moments before his childhood breakdown. Today was that morning.

Vala's arms tightened around his back as he began to cry large, noisy tears into her hair.

"I..loved them..so much. They...," he gasped, the tightness in his throat getting worse and worse as he cried. Vala didn't say anything, she simply snuggled closer to him. She didn't need to, really. He knew she knew how he felt. Daniel was never good at hiding his attachment to people, and he had a feeling that everyone at the SGC had known how much he needed his friends. Had needed Sam and Jack in particular, the brother and sister fate had robbed him of when his parents died, and yet also the parental influence he'd lacked as he was shuttled from home to home. They were the people who named their child for his lost loved ones on Abydos and invited him to be an uncle for their little girl. They had, whether they'd thought about it or not, given him a family again.

And now all that was left of them was their daughter. Somewhere in the camp, Skaara Sha're O'Neill was sleeping, exhausted by her tears for the fifth week in a row, watched over by an equally exhausted George Hammond. She hadn't let go of his hand since they got there, unable to let go of the last person she'd been held by in the familiar confines of Cheyenne Mountain. Daniel wondered how soon her moment of waking from delusion would occur, and if he'd be ready to help her.

He wouldn't if he didn't get through his own moment.

"Daniel....Daniel I'm here..," his wife soothed as she started to rub his back gently. He felt himself slowly relax, the sincere comfort Vala offered finally breaking through the grief. He took a deep breath and tightened his embrace. He'd be lost without this woman, overused cliché that it was (he winces a little. Jack _hated_ clichés.)

"Get some sleep, darling. General Hammond needs to start getting this place organized, and he can't do that with a five year old attached to his arm."

"Ok...ok..ya."

"Skaara Sha're will need you."

"I know."

"Go back to sleep, then. I'm going to be here when you wake. You believe me, right?."

In the darkness Daniel kissed her cheek and loosened his hold on her. He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes. Sam and Jack's faces reappeared in his mind's eye, but this time they were smiling approvingly at him.

_"Thats the way, Danny boy."_

"Right."

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I need to stop watching the sad episodes...I blame leftover angst from Meridian for this...


End file.
